Grainne believes the whole of Ballinamore will head to Croke Park!

It wasn’t something they talked about, maybe for fear of jinxing it before it happened but the town of Ballinamore could decamp to Croke Park on Saturday December 16, according to Grainne Prior after Ballinamore Sean O’Heslins sealed their place in the CurrentAccount.ie LGFA All-Ireland IFC Club Final.

Ballinamore will take on Cork’s Glanmire with an All-Ireland title at stake and even as she struggled to take in the enormity of what occurred in the dying seconds last Saturday in Pairc Sheain Ui Eslin, O’Heslins captain predicted a mass exodus to Dublin on Saturday week, only this time not for the Christmas shopping!

“I can’t believe it, it is crazy. Even before today, we knew that was the prize but you have to just say ‘take the game as it comes’ and think about that afterwards,” Grainne told the Observer before adding “Christmas will just be postponed for the whole town of Ballinamore for two weeks!

Ballinamore Sean O'Heslins celebrate dramatic injury time win to reach All-Ireland Final - GALLERY

Wild celebrations in Ballinamore this evening as Ballinamore Sean O'Heslins grabbed a dramatic 1-10 to 1-8 victory over Derry's Steelstown Brian Ogs to qualify for the CurrentAccount.ie All-Ireland LGFA Intermediate Club Final. Observer photographer Willie Donnellan was a busy man with his camera capturing the celebrations ..... see who you can spot!

“I think the whole town will be closed down and the whole town up in Dublin on December 16. It will be such an experience, a once in a lifetime thing to get to play in Croke Park. We’ll soak up everything.”

Reliving those final frantic moments as Ballinamore chased an equaliser at the very least, Grainne talked of her confidence in her teammates and their self-belief: “The last 60 seconds, you could see everybody chasing and chasing the ball and they could easily just have held on to it but I suppose it showed how much we wanted it, we were never going to say die until the final whistle sounded.

“I’m still so shocked - we were being told five minutes, four minutes, three minutes, two minutes, you knew that it was literally the last play of the game, do or die and to be fair to the girls, we fought and fought and fought, pushed them right back to the goalkeeper, forced the mistake and got the goal when we really needed it.”

In many ways, Ballinamore’s experience in the Connacht Final against Eoghan Rua gave them the confidence they could come back against Steelstown Brian Ogs: “I suppose the last game we were in a very similar position, two points down at halftime. Today, we knew we could say we could come back from this, we know that we have it in us. 

Ballinamore Sean O'Heslins to face Cork's Glanmire in CurrentAccount.ie All-Ireland LGFA Intermediate Club Final

“The first half was very similar to the last game, I think that we didn’t get off to a good start, we were all over the place and we were worried about them more than our own game. So the second half, we said that if we can keep it within one or two points until the last ten minutes, we knew that we would have the fitness and the legs to push on and fair play to the girls for getting that goal at the end.”